


tooth and nail

by TardisIsTheOnlyWayToTravel



Series: Red in tooth and claw [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: BAMF Maria Hill, Gen, Pre-Canon, Shapeshifters - Freeform, Velociraptors, some violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-06
Updated: 2014-10-06
Packaged: 2018-02-20 03:20:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,140
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2413049
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TardisIsTheOnlyWayToTravel/pseuds/TardisIsTheOnlyWayToTravel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There’s something <i>different</i> about Maria Hill. Phil’s never been able to put his finger on exactly what; all he’s ever been able to work out is that something about the way she behaves sometimes rings false.</p><p>Well, that, and that something about the way she moves sets all his instincts on high alert, for reasons he can’t quite explain, even to himself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	tooth and nail

**Author's Note:**

> A prequel to 'oh-oh here she comes,' because doc suggested that it would be great to see Fury and Coulson finding out about Maria. 
> 
> This takes place pre-canon, before Maria became Deputy Director.

**Tooth and Nail**

There’s something _different_ about Maria Hill. Phil’s never been able to put his finger on exactly what; all he’s ever been able to work out is that something about the way she behaves sometimes rings false.

Well, that, and that something about the way she moves sets all his instincts on high alert, for reasons he can’t quite explain, even to himself.

Phil’s never asked about it, never tried to dig for answers, either bluntly or obliquely; Maria is a good agent, one who’s proven herself several times over, and besides, whatever’s going on with Maria, Phil’s pretty sure that the Director knows _exactly_ what it is. So Phil assumes that Fury knows what he’s doing, and doesn’t pry.

He does wonder, though.

* * *

Phil gets to know Maria pretty well during an op in post-Soviet Moscow. Maria’s Russian is excellent, and she has an eye for dressing just like the Muscovites around them. There are other agents in Moscow with them, monitoring their situation from a distance, but essentially, Phil and Maria are on their own for this one.

Maria is surprisingly good at pretending to be something she’s not. Phil never would have imagined that the somewhat-brusque, straightforward agent was so good at taking on a role.

In retrospect, that should have been a piece of the puzzle; at the time, however, it flies completely over Phil’s head.

At night Phil and Maria sweep their room for bugs, and when the room comes up clean, talk quietly about every topic under the sun, for want of anything better to do. Phil talks about how Fury talked him into joining SHIELD years ago, when he was still a young man with none of his sharp edges hidden the way that they are now.

Maria listens quietly, with a frown: that seems to be her default expression, though, a thoughtful frown, so Phil doesn’t find it particularly off-putting.

“I think,” she says slowly, when Phil is finished, “I mostly joined SHIELD to get away.”

Phil asks the obvious question.

“From what?”

Maria sighs gently, her eyes a little unfocused.

“Predictability,” she says, and then her eyes sharpen as they land on him, and for just a second, Phil has the sense that he is being assessed by something alien and cold, looking out of Maria’s eyes.

The feeling is gone a moment later; the whatever-it-was in Maria’s eyes has been veiled, nothing there for Phil to see but what he would expect to find.

But Phil didn’t get this far into SHIELD without learning a skill or two, and he knows better than to think that the moment of _otherness_ was his imagination.

He files it away for later consideration, and pretends that turning his back to Maria to retrieve the Russian paperback he’s been reading doesn’t send a shiver down his spine.

* * *

It’s not until a year later that Phil finds out what’s going on with Maria. He might have been better off not knowing.

* * *

They’re on an op that’s gone badly wrong, and ended with Maria and Phil in a locked in a cell, unarmed and bruised.

Maria is snarling slightly to herself, little angry hissing noises escaping every now and again, and Phil resists the urge to shuffle a little further away.

He aches all over, and can barely see out of his right eye; they worked him over after they drugged him, presumably to send a message. Maria got off more easily in that respect; while she was drugged unconscious and kidnapped, just like he was, at least she wasn’t beaten up.

“Are you okay?” Phil finally asks, more unnerved than he likes to admit by the strange sounds that Maria is making.

Maria looks at him with eyes narrowed to slits. It’s an angry, dangerous look, and Phil stays very still.

“Drugs affect me badly,” is all Maria says, before she lapses back into the tiny snarls and weird outbursts of hissing.

After about two hours of this, the cell door opens, and a couple of big, burly guys drag them out of the cell and into another room, where several more burley guys are waiting, along with smiling man in a suit.

Maria and Phil are each shoved down onto a chair. There’s several loops of rope on a table nearby, as well as a pair of pliers and several knives.

Things aren’t looking good.

No one in the room is armed with a gun, but several of the burly men have knives badly-concealed on their person, Phil notes, letting his gaze wander over the scene. He fixes a frightened look on his face that isn’t entirely feigned, and waits to see what happens next.

Maria is glaring, lips drawn back in a snarl, and the man in the suit smiles pleasantly at her. Maria’s fingers curl, her fingernails scraping against the arms of her chair.

“You’re going to tell me who you’re working for,” says the man in the suit. “And then, if you’re lucky, you’re going to die.”

Phil swallows, and prepares himself for pain.

But Maria says, low and savage, “Think again, _asshole_ ,” and tucks her feet under her body, as though getting ready to spring. Phil wonders what the hell she thinks she’s doing.

“Now, now,” says the man in the suit, clicking his tongue chidingly. “None of that–”

Maria opens her mouth, and a _noise_ comes out, a sort of rising-and-falling bellow, and Phil’s hair stands on end because that noise _is not human._ The sound freezes him to his chair, as his instincts rise up and scream in warning.

The noise must affect everyone else in the room the same way, because for a second nobody moves, frozen still –

And Maria leaps out of her chair, high and feet-first, straight at the man in the suit, and by the time she makes contact she isn’t human anymore.

What’s there instead is a thing out of nightmare, feathered and clawed and full of teeth, and it rakes its claws down the torso of the man in the suit. Blood and innards spill out, and the man screams as he goes down, but the creature is already moving.

The thugs scream, and some of them go for their knives while others try to run, but the creature is too fast, too precise, and it takes them out one by one. The last man tries to make a break for it, screaming a terrified, mindless scream the entire time, but the creature is on him in an instant, and a moment later there is silence.

The creature turns back to face Phil, and stands still.

Phil grips the arms of his chair and stares, with eyes that feel like they’re starting from his head, his heart beating a frantic rhythm in his chest and his breathing coming hard and fast.

The creature is large, maybe a couple of metres tall, and several metres long. It’s covered in sandy-coloured feathers, with a crest running across the back of its head. The face ends in a short snout full of sharp teeth, and the eyes are set towards the front of the skull, bright yellow with large pupils. Those eyes are bright and intelligent, and watch Phil with a razor-sharp intensity.

Phil wets his lips, and croaks,

“Maria?”

In one swift, smooth moment, the creature shifts, and Maria is standing there. For a moment her eyes are sharp and hawk-like, as she stands poised to move; then she relaxes, and the unnatural keenness leaves her eyes.

“You okay?” Maria asks, and Phil blinks several times, trying to push away the sense of unreality.

“What the hell was that?” he manages.

Maria gives a wry smile, and steps forward to help him out of the chair. Which is just as well, because Phil’s legs don’t seem to be working properly.

His heart is still beating far too fast.

“That was a velociraptor,” Maria says, helping Phil to his feet.

“Velociraptor?” The name sounds familiar, but Phil can’t think why.

“It’s a kind of dinosaur,” Maria gently explains, and her eyes are apologetic, even if the rest of her face is set in a hard expression.

“But dinosaurs are extinct,” Phil says weakly, walking with Maria to the door. Maria opens in, and glances down the hallway in both directions. “And since when do they have feathers?”

Maria spares Phil a pitying glance as she drags him down the hallway.

“You haven’t kept up with the last decade of palaeontological discoveries, have you?” she says, and Phil doesn’t say anything else, just tries to coax his scattered wits together as they make their escape.

No one tries to stop them as they leave the building. Phil tries not to think of the pile of torn and broken bodies Maria-the-velociraptor left behind.

* * *

After being seen to by Medical, Phil and Maria deliver their report verbally, to Fury himself. At the end of it, there’s a long silence.

“You can turn into a dinosaur,” Fury says. His tone is surprisingly mild.

Maria tries to run her hands through her hair, realises that it’s still in its ponytail, and stops, looking uncomfortable.

“That’s correct, sir.”

“How the ever-loving fuck does that happen?” Fury asks, sounding like he genuinely wants to know the answer.

Maria shrugs stiffly.

“I was born this way, sir. My entire family are were-velociraptors.”

Phil watches Fury mouth ‘were-velociraptors’ to himself, and can’t help feeling glad that he’s not the only one out of his depth.

“Were-velociraptors,” Fury says again, sounding weary. “Godammit, _why?_ ”

Without waiting for an answer he sits down at his desk, opens one of his desk drawers, and pulls out a bottle of scotch and a couple of shot glasses. He sets the glasses down on his desk and pours some scotch into each, before capping the scotch bottle and putting it back in the desk drawer.

Fury tosses one back and silently offers the other glass to Phil, who mutely does the same. Phil feels a little better afterwards.

Fury interlocks his fingers and rests them on his desk.

“So, apparently were-velociraptors are a thing that exists,” he says, with more calm than Phil could possibly command under the circumstances. Phil is impressed. “Agent Hill, I assume that you would prefer that this information doesn’t enter any official records?”

Maria meets Fury’s eyes squarely, and Phil wonders that he never noticed before how she never backs down, even around Fury. Because it’s obvious now, after what he’s seen – what Maria really is is reflected in everything she does, from the way she moves, to the way she makes eye contact like it’s a challenge of some kind. Phil has just never had the context to put it all together before.

“Or any unofficial ones,” Maria says, and if it were anyone else Phil would be admiring their balls, but – intimidating as Fury is, how could even he manage to intimidate a _were-dinosaur?_ The notion is laughable.

But Fury nods thoughtfully, and asks a question.

“Are you affected by the full moon?”

Maria makes a slight face.

“It takes more control not to shift into my other form around the full moon, and if I haven’t shifted recently, I’m more likely to be irritable and aggressive then,” she says honestly.

Fury nods, and looks at Phil.

“Do you have anything else to say, Agent Coulson?”

Phil shakes his head.

“Then you’re dismissed.”

Fury says nothing more, and he and Maria watch as Phil leaves Fury’s office, shutting the door securely behind him.

* * *

Phil goes home, and instead of crashing, orders some takeout and sits in front of the computer, where he Googles in earnest.

It turns out that dinosaurs have changed a lot since Phil was a kid, or even since _Jurassic_ _Park_ came out. Apparently scientists have discovered that they have a fully-upright stance instead of a semi-sprawled one – whatever the hell that means – and they have feathers now. Even T-rex probably had feathers, Phil discovers. He tries to imagine a feathered T-rex, has unexpected success, and gives a full-body shudder.

The pictures of Velociraptors that Phil looks at are strange and faintly ridiculous; none of them look like the sleek, feathered instrument of death that Phil had witnessed earlier that day.

He finishes his takeout and shuts down the computer, and goes to bed early.

His dreams are unsettled and uneasy, but when he wakes up the next morning, he doesn’t remember any of them.

* * *

When Phil gets in to work, he’s greeted by Maria, who’s holding a to-go coffee cup in each hand. She offers one to Phil, who silently takes it.

“Are we okay?” Maria asks, and her eyes are full of almost-painful sincerity. Phil searches her face, and finds nothing but honest emotion there.

“Yeah,” he says. “We’re okay.”

 It's not even a lie.

 

 


End file.
